By Kim
Quickfire Challenge: Tim Love is the guest judge and the cheftestants have to choose from many tequilas and make a dish to be paired with it. Tim Love calls Heather's dish similar to something you'd find in a chain restaurant. Ouch. Ty-Lor wins with a spicy oyster dish. He doesn't get immunity, but he does get $5,000.
Elimination Challenge: The cheftestants are paired up randomly based on where they are standing. Each pair will be cooking a game meat for a famous game-meat cooking chef. The twist is that the cheftestants will decide amongst themselves who will be the bottom three, and then the judges will make the final decision, and both members of the team will be eliminated.
As you might expect, Beverly and Heather are butting heads. Well, Beverly is trying to cook and Heather is bullying her, mostly about how she doesn't want their dish to be too Asian. Chris Moto has this big plan to make some sort of lattice work out of saltwater soaked sweet potatoes, and Grayson trusts him, and it doesn't work. Anyway, here are the dishes:
Nyesha and Dakota: roasted rack of venison with kabocha squash and beet gratin. The venison is undercooked and it's Dakota's fault. The judges like the rest of the plate, though.
Sarah and Paul: squab breast and sausage with pickled nectarines. The judges like the flavors together, but think the presentation was a little sloppy. Sarah starts crying when she's done because the sausage didn't come out as she had hoped.
Grayson and Chris: juniper-roasted elk with sweet potato and bouquet of citrus greens. Chris tells the judges that his technique didn't work out and Grayson jumps over him and says it's what they wanted. The judges think the meat tastes good, but the presentation sucks. Grayson tells Chris not to say anything about his screwup to the other cheftestants.
Chris and Lindsay: Roasted wild boar with kohlrabi slaw and farro fried rice. The judges don't love the marinade, but think the slaw is good. Back in the kitchen, Paul thinks the slaw is a little watery.
Heather and Beverly: Five-spice duck breast with creamy polenta and pickled cherries. You know, Heather picks on Beverly for always doing Asian, but Heather pickles EVERYTHING. The judges don't think the duck breast is cooked perfectly, and that the dish is boring. The cheftestants are missing the crispy skin on the duck breast.
Ed and Ty-Lor: sorghum quail with pickled cherries and eggplant. The judges like that the quail was allowed to shine.
The winners are Ed and Ty-Lor. Along with their fellow chefs, they have to send out three teams for consideration for elimination. After an emotional and difficult conversation, they agree to send in Grayson and Chris Moto, Nyesha and Dakota, and Beverly and Heather.
Dakota takes almost all of the blame for her team, since she undercooked the meat, but the judges thought Nyesha should have checked up on Dakota's work. Chris Moto's weird technique failed. Heather attacks Beverly's work ethic in front of the judges and poor Beverly is dumbfounded to the point that Dakota has to stand up for her. The judges could tell their team wasn't working, because the dish seemed like a collection of ingredients more than a meal. The judges agree that the cheftestants sent in the correct three teams, and ultimately send Dakota and Nyesha home because I guess there's no excuse for not properly cooking the meat when that was the point of the challenge.
After Whitney's elimination, the cheftestants return to their apartment and start drinking booze. Nyesha interviews that she was shocked at how harsh Heather was to Beverly, and she thinks it says a lot about Heather's lack of integrity. Ty knows that he has come close to being eliminated a few times, and his goal going forward is to showcase the kind of chef that he is and show the judges that he deserves to be there. I get what he's saying but isn't that always his goal? Or is his goal to make some nonsense and hope the judges let him skate by?
The morning, the cheftestants report to the kitchen at Le Cordon Bleu. They find Padma there with Tim Love, one of my favorites from Top Chef: Masters, and behind them on a table, tons of different kinds of tequila. Padma explains the Quickfire Challenge. They have to choose a tequila and make a dish that pairs with it. Ty is psyched because he's a tequila fanatic, and has even been to the place in Mexico where the tequila is made. I'm envisioning Snoopy's cousin Needles and a cactus and then a giant fountain that spews tequila. That's how it works, right? Tim Love explains that tequila is made to be sipped like wine, and they will need strong flavors in their food to match it. The cheftestants get to taste the tequila in order to choose one, and the winner doesn't get immunity, but does win $5,000.
The cheftestants run to taste tequila and see what's available in the walk-in. Sarah explains that she and her boss, Tony Mantuano, always do a shot of tequila in the airport when they fly, and it's always blanco. So she's pairing that, which has a green, fresh flavor, with a fennel risotto. Chris Moto talks about how he loves working with tequila, but it's really high in alcohol, so presumably when you apply heat, it would all burn off. Of course, they didn't specify that you had to put the tequila IN the dish, just WITH the dish. Ty explains to someone who probably doesn't care that he is doing a variant on a dish he came up with "while on the beach in Thailand" and hopes to "pick up on the caramelly, woodsy flavors." I want to like Ty, and then he goes and says pretentious things like that.
Chris Hollywood interviews that tequila reminds him of vacations and the beach, so he's making a raw oyster and hopes it will be simple and fresh. Beverly is also making oysters, but she's going to smoke hers. Dakota is making a lamb chop, which seems heavier than what everyone else is doing. Lindsay hopes to use her "lived in Mexico for three years" experience, although that didn't serve her very well in the last Mexican food challenge. Chris Moto goes to pan sear his chicken breast and he must have poured an entire bottle of tequila in because there's a huge fireball over his pan. Ty interviews kind of bitchily that Chris seems to be overcooking his chicken breast. Really? You think that giant fireball might not make for a juicy and delicious piece of chicken? Paul is jealous that he didn't think of making clams like Ty did, so that bodes well for Ty, since Paul has been really good at judging what dish to make lately. Chris Hollywood thinks he finally made a dish that reflects him as a chef, so he's satisfied.
And...time's up! Chris Moto interviews that the rest of his dish is great, but he's worried that the chicken will be dry. Okay, here are the dishes. Ty made steamed clams in a Thai-style broth. Tim Love likes the sweetness of the clam. Heather made mango avocado salad with rock shrimp. Tim Love doesn't think it pairs with the tequila. Beverly made a cold-smoked green tea oyster. Tim Love likes the smokiness. Heather used the same tequila as Bev, and when Bev get a positive comment, Heather pulls a sour lemon face.
Sarah made fennel risotto with glazed scallop. Tim Love itches his nose when Sarah says that she used fennel pollen. Lindsay made salmon with fennel puree and brown butter sauce. It's very orange. Tim likes the skin on her salmon. Ed made bok choy lettuce wraps with lamb. As he describes his dish, Heather makes a total WTF face. She would be a terrible poker player. Tim just calls it a "very interesting pairing." Chris Moto made pan-seared chicken with lime vinaigrette. All these smears on the plates just look to me like the food slid across the plate because the waiter bobbled them on the way out. I don't get it. Tim thinks it's a "playful dish." Grayson made sesame cod with tequila brown sugar glaze. Grayson jokes that she never drinks tequila, because she's from Wisconsin, so she's a beer girl. Chris Hollywood made raw oyster with tequila tapioca pearl and sea salt air. Tim says that it makes him feel like he's at the beach. Dakota made lamb with medjool date pistou. I don't know what most of those words mean, but Tim says that the date is really sweet. As in sugary, not as in, "Dude, sweeeeet." Although I could see Tim Love saying that.
Judging time! Tim thinks that some cheftestants really looked at it like a pairing, while others just kind of made food. He points out that Heather didn't seem to think about the pairing, and calls her dish "a new special at a chain restaurant." OUCH! That is both accurate and ice cold. He tells Chris Moto that his chicken was dry, and the quinoa was the highlight, "unfortunately." Because quinoa should never be a highlight? I would agree with that. Tim also didn't like Sarah's dish, because he thought the tequila curdled the flavors, and he thought her risotto was undercooked. Sarah is like, "OH NO YOU DIDN'T call my risotto undercooked, pedestrian." But nicer. And in an interview.
So whose food was good? Tim thinks Chris Hollywood picked a tequila that was difficult to pair with, and he did a really great job. Lindsay cooked her salmon nicely and infused the tequila into every element of the dish. Ty had great spiciness and greenery. I don't know that I've ever made a dish where someone complimented me on the greenery. That's interesting. And the winner is the standout dish, which was simple and clean, and the person who made that dish is Ty. He wins the five grand. Ty feels like it was a redemption of sorts and plans to "show that [his] food is rockin' off the chart." Man, he has to make it difficult to like him, doesn't he? With the umlaut and the facial hair and then saying things like "rockin' off the chart"?
Padma introduces the Elimination Challenge by saying that they will be paired with the person they are standing to. That means Heather is paired with Beverly, and Heather HATES Beverly. She doesn't respect her as a chef or as a person, and says as much in an interview. Edward is also a little worried about being paired with Ty-Lor, since last time they worked together, they did horribly. Tim Love explains that he's hosting a game dinner at his restaurant, and they will be cooking. He's invited some famous game chefs from around the country, and then they make a big deal about these famous chefs, and then they get like zero screen time for the rest of the episode, so I'm not going to bother dictating who they are. Nyesha and Dakota will be cooking venison, Sarah and Paul have squab, Grayson and Chris Moto have elk, Chris Hollywood and Lindsay have boar, Heather and Beverly have duck, and Ed and Ty have quail. Ed interviews that his restaurant has a game dinner twice a year, so he's psyched. Then Padma drops the bomb: their fellow chefs will be judges too. Sarah thinks that tempers will flare and personal relationships might come into play. The cheftestants will choose the bottom three, and then the judges will decide which TEAM goes home. So it's a double elimination. Yikes! The team that wins will split ten grand.
They run to Whole Foods. Heather and Beverly start shopping and Heather shoots down every single suggestion that Beverly makes without any discussion, and then yells at her across the store to pick up various ingredients, like a servant. Beverly interviews that she doesn't love Heather's bossiness, but she's trying to be a team player. Dakota says that she's cooked a lot of venison but not in a while. Chris Moto explains his idea to Grayson; he's going to soak his yams in salt water overnight, which will make them flexible, and then they can carve them into some sort of lattice work? But will it taste good? Or will they be all briny? Grayson makes him promise that it will work and be awesome, and he promises. Grayson interviews that the crazy stuff isn't her style, but she just has to trust her partner. Everyone checks out (but not before Heather once again calls Beverly like she's a dog) and leaves.
Back in the kitchen, the prep begins. Edward jokes that he was hoping for roadkill or an elephant carcass. Chris Moto and Grayson decide to start with their spice mix and move on from there, and Chris interviews that he's never cooked elk, but he's heard that the temperature is the most important thing. We haven't really seen any sous vide this season yet, have we? Is that not a thing anymore? Paul and Sarah seem to be working well together, as Paul debones the squab and Sarah starts making a mix of meats in order to make sausage.
Beverly's version of being on a team is checking in with Heather every step of the way, and it makes sense, because you know if she doesn't, Heather will start yelling at her. But it also gives Heather a lot of opportunities to tell Beverly she's doing it wrong. The first example is when Beverly describes the spice rub and Heather says that she doesn't want the dish to be too Asian, because that's not her style. Which is fine, but how about offering up an alternative, then? Because clearly it IS Bev's style. Heather interviews that Bev cooks Pan-Asian and she cooks American farm-to-table, and their styles don't meld. Well, isn't part of the challenge to MAKE them meld, instead of just throwing up your hands and going, "Oh well. I'll just make sure my stuff is good so that I can throw my partner under the bus if needed." Heather keeps harping on Bev, and the other cheftestants start to notice. Edward says in an interview that Heather is being "a complete bitch." Sarah is worried that her sausage isn't good enough, and Paul admits in an interview that if the sausage doesn't work out, they will definitely be in the bottom.
Everyone packs their food for the day and heads back to the apartment. Heather and Beverly discuss their dish, with Heather continuing to shoot down every suggestions that Beverly makes. She's also one of those people who licks her finger before turning a page, which I find gross. Now, some might say that Beverly should stand up for herself, and she probably should, but when you're dealing with an aggressive loudmouth like Heather, sometimes it's just easier to pick your battles. Beverly interviews that she used to be in an abusive relationship and she finally got the strength to leave him, and she's learned a lot and become much stronger. I hope so. She's going to need strength to deal with Hurricane Heather.
The day, everyone rushes into the tiny, hot kitchen at Tim Love's restaurant for the final hours of preparation. Chris Hollywood and Lindsay are going to be the first to serve, and they're already sweating and chugging water. Grayson reminds us that this is a double elimination, and the cheftestants will be judging one another to discern the bottom three. Heather interviews that this is the tiniest, hottest kitchen she's ever been in, and in fact, everyone is dripping sweat onto the food. Yum, salty. Chris Moto pulls his sweet potatoes out of the brine to find that they're still crisp, which means that he can't do the preparation he was planning. Grayson is too nice to say, "You motherfucker," but you know that's what she's thinking. Chris decides to call an audible and do sweet potato fries, which seems like the most boring option ever. He's got ninety minutes. He couldn't at least roast them with something or do a mash or anything more interesting than a sweet potato fry?
The judges and guests arrive and are seated, so time is winding down. Beverly is trying to cook the duck for her plate and Heather keeps reaching over and moving the duck around in her pan and micromanaging the duck. Then there's a bit about onions; Heather wants to use them and Beverly doesn't. So Heather says it's part of her "rustic style" so they'll "have to compromise." I don't think she knows what compromise means. It doesn't mean, "You'll do what I say and shut up about it." Heather complains in an interview that Beverly asks a lot of questions, like a sous chef would, and doesn't think like a chef. No, she asks a lot of questions because if she doesn't do things exactly as you say, you will yell at her and throw her under the bus later. Lindsay and Chris find that their boar isn't cooked enough in the center, but they have enough chops that they can just use the ones on the ends for plating. And they barely get everything on the plate in time. Whew!
Chris and Lindsay serve first: peach barbecue sauce on roasted wild boar with kohlrabi slaw and farro fried rice. The judges think they should have skipped the marinade. Tom likes the texture of the slaw, and the sauce as well, but think it's a boring dish overall. Back in the kitchen, the other cheftestants taste it. Sarah the Diplomat says that it's a "fun, elegant way to do barbecue," but Paul points out that they're going to have to nitpick everyone's dish, and his nitpick is that the slaw is a little watery. Lindsay overhears the critique and interviews that it's "gut-wrenching."
Heather and Beverly serve : Five-spice duck breast with creamy polenta and pickled cherries, as well as a fresh salad. You know, Heather picks on Beverly for always doing Asian, but Heather pickles EVERYTHING. The judges don't love the pickled cherries, and think the duck breast is not rendered enough and a little rubbery. I guess that means they cooked it too fast and at too high of a heat? As you can tell from reading my recaps, I know very little about chefery, but if you want fat to leave a protein, you should cook it slow and low. I wonder if Heather constantly poking at the duck in the pan had anything to do with it. God knows she can't blame Beverly for screwing up the duck, since Heather micromanaged the whole thing. Overall, the judges also find this dish boring. Boring and safe seem to be keywords this season. Somebody needs to try something interesting soon. The other cheftestants note that the duck doesn't have a crispy skin, but when Beverly and Heather come back, Sarah tells them that the duck breast is perfect. You know, she could just not say anything.
Before we move on to the dish, we see Nyesha and Dakota working on their dish. Nyesha is in charge of a gratin, and she's using a biscuit cutter to plate it, which I thought Whitney should have done last week. Dakota is cooking the venison and knows that it has to be cooked perfectly. So she'll probably totally do that and all will be well, right?
Grayson and Chris are trying to get their food plated. Grayson is not happy with how the sweet potato fries turned out. They're really thick and short. They look like Burger King fries. These two might be in trouble. They bring out their dish to the judges: juniper-roasted elk with sweet potato and bouquet of citrus greens. Padma asks why the sweet potatoes are cut so weird, and Chris says that he was trying to do a technique and it didn't work out, so this was a last-minute decision. Grayson interrupts him to say that it's exactly what they wanted, because they wanted height on the plate. As they walk back to the kitchen, Grayson warns Chris not to point out their mistakes to the judges. The judges love the meat, but the presentation is awful. Grayson tells Chris that they're probably going home, so don't say anything to the other cheftestants about their screw-ups and maybe they can stay out of the bottom three. Chris interviews that he knows he messed up the sweet potatoes, but he cooked the meat perfectly. Wait, if he cooked the potatoes and the meat, what in the hell did Grayson do? Anyway, Heather tells Grayson that the elk was cooked perfectly.
Sarah is worried about her sausage. Ty is also really concerned about cooking his squab, because game meat doesn't have a lot of fat, and it can dry out quickly. Then one of the judges tells a story about catching and eating alligators. And the judges must be indulging in that tequila, because they think that story is HILARIOUS. Meanwhile, Dakota is noticing that her venison isn't cooking for some reason, maybe because people are opening the ovens too much. She tries to brainstorm a way to get the venison cooked, and Nyesha just says, "Go for it." Nyesha interviews that Dakota is really insecure so she's just trying to give her confidence. Which is fine, and what a good partner should do, but Nyesha should also make sure that meat is cooked, or they're in big trouble.
Ed and Ty-Lor: sorghum quail with pickled cherries and eggplant. The judges love that the quail shines and is the center of the plate, and that the chefs brought out "the earthy qualities of the ingredients." We don't get to see what their fellow cheftestants thought. They kind of dropped that conceit halfway through.
Sarah is still worried about her sausages, and decides that they're no good, so she ditches her first batch and makes a whole new batch at the last minute. This gets Paul worried.
Meanwhile, Dakota and Nyesha are plating and the venison is... not cooked. It's almost blue in the center and dark red all the way to the edges. Dakota asks Nyesha if she thinks the venison is too rare and Nyesha's like, "What can we do at this point?" Nyesha interviews that all Dakota had to do was cook the venison properly, and it didn't happen, and that shouldn't happen at this level. Time is up and they serve roasted rack of venison with kabocha squash and beet gratin. The judges all like the dish, but note that the venison is way too rare. Tom specifically compliments the gratin. The cheftestants in back also note the rareness of the meat.
Sarah and Paul struggle to get their food plated and finish in the last split second. Sarah is really worried that something she screwed up would make Paul go home, and she would be devastated. They serve squab breast and sausage with pickled nectarines with shallots and jalapeno. The judges like all the flavors together, but wanted more caramelization of the skin and think the presentation was a little sloppy. When they return to the kitchen, Sarah starts crying because the sausage didn't come out as she had hoped. Then she gets upset that she's crying, which makes her cry more. Been there. Beverly totally lets her off the hook and says that it's okay to cry (of course Beverly says that because she cries all the time) and that everyone is stressed and they all handle stress differently.
Padma returns to the kitchen and asks to see Ed and Ty, so everyone knows that they won. I guess they can't bring anyone else back in because they have to let the cheftestants decide the bottom three teams. Ty is psyched to make it back up to the top, since he's been in the bottom quite a bit lately. Ed is happy that he didn't make an ass of himself in front of these famous chefs. Padma tells them that they will have fifteen minutes to decide, as a group, who are the bottom three teams.
So then they waste like the first two minutes just sitting around staring at one another and moping. I think they should count to three and then yell out who they think should go. That would be hilarious. The weird interstitial features the cheftestants talking about the judging process. Someone suggests that they make "them" decide (the judges, Ed and Ty-Lor, who knows?) and Grayson says that they'll just vote. Heather says that Grayson won't vote for herself and Grayson says, "Neither will you!" Good point, Grayson and thankfully someone finally stood up to Heather the Bully. Ty-Lor makes it even more hard to like him when he reminds us that he and Heather are BFF and he doesn't want to see her go. If he was really her BFF, he would tell her to take it down like seven notches.
Paul volunteers to start with this reasons. He thinks Heather and Beverly's plate wasn't his style, Nyesha and Dakota's meat was tough, and Chris and Grayson's meat was dry. Heather agrees that Dakota's meat was too rare, and Dakota totally owns it. Grayson asks who Heather's third team would be and Heather says she can't pick a third. Grayson is like, "But we're all going through and picking three teams" and Heather gets all defensive and says, "Oh I get what we're doing, Grayson, you don't have to tell me about the process." Wow, what an asshole. Don't get me wrong; I love a strong woman who knows her mind and isn't afraid to speak it. But Heather is just unnecessarily mean, and I cannot abide that. So then no one else speaks up. I would like to give kudos to Paul because he stuck his neck out. Heather wanted to SEEM like she was going out on a limb, but she really just reiterated what Paul said and didn't add anything of value. And the rest of those cowards just sat there.
Ty-Lor points out that their time is halfway done. So then Chris Moto organizes a vote. They all agree that Grayson and Chris should go. A smaller majority thinks Heather and Beverly should go. And some number less than everyone thinks Dakota and Nyesha should go, although Dakota votes for herself. Ed interviews that there might be a little bit of collusion going on, but then again, no one wants to totally screw over another cheftestant, because you might be on a team with that person in the challenge. And also, you know, basic human decency. This is classic cowardice, though. Once three teams were named, everyone else just lumped in so they didn't have to argue. At the very least, Ed and Ty could have made a case for someone, because they had nothing to lose at this point. It's also probable that those were really obviously the bottom three so no one felt the need to argue differently.
So the bottom three consists of Chris Moto and Grayson, Heather and Beverly, and Dakota and Nyesha. They file in to face the judges: Padma, Tom, Hugh Acheson, and Tim Love. Padma reminds them that an entire team should be going home. Tom asks them if they all think they deserve to be there. Heather says that she doesn't, and she would serve that dish in her restaurant. Interesting that she didn't voice that opinion earlier. Tom asks why she thinks they're in the bottom three then, and Heather invokes the always popular, "Jus' jellus" defense, since she won the last challenge. Grayson and Nyesha are both like, "Seriously? The balls on that lady."
Tom says that none of these three dishes were bad. He tells Dakota and Nyesha that they had great components, but their meat was way undercooked. Dakota says that they just ran out of time somehow. Padma asks Nyesha if she ever thought to check in on Dakota, and Nyesha says that by the time she did, it was too late. Dakota gets emotional and says she can't believe that this happened, because she's cooked this meat many times. Hugh cheers her up by saying that the flavors worked really well, but it's just that the meat was too rare.
Moving on to Grayson and Chris. He learned his lesson and says that they played it safe with the juniper, like that was the problem with the dish. Hugh says that the meat was cooked well, but the sweet potatoes were just ridiculous. Chris admits that maybe he shouldn't have put them on the plate. Tom thinks that he just wanted to make that chain link fence thing, and didn't care about whether it fit with the dish, but Chris says that he did think the flavors went well together.
Tom moves on and asks Beverly why they're there. Before Beverly can get two words out, Heather interrupts and says it was difficult to balance two chefs on one plate. Tim says that the duck leg was good, but the breast needed to render longer. Beverly acknowledges that the skin wasn't crispy, but she thought the duck was tender. Tom's problem was that it didn't seem like a dish so much as a collection of ingredients. Heather has to bring up that she and Beverly have not, throughout the competition, seen eye-to-eye. Heather brings up the work ethic issue again and the last competition, where she feels Beverly took too long to prep the shrimp. Beverly gets choked up and says that she thinks her work ethic is strong, and that she had a huge task, and while Heather helped her in the end, she didn't ask for help. Heather snots, "No, your teammate did." Ba-gong.
Dakota speaks up and says that she doesn't like how this is going, and that Beverly is a strong, hard-working chef. Nyesha nods vigorously. Dakota adds that people don't see eye-to-eye sometimes, but you still have to work together. Yeah, Heather. Sit down and shut it. Tom tries to bring the focus back to today's dish, and Heather says that Beverly doesn't have confidence in herself. Bev says that her version of teamwork is asking questions and communicating together, and that she stands by the dish. Man, Heather came off as a real asshole. There was no reason for her to bring up the last challenge. It had nothing to do with their dish today and the judges seriously don't give a shit what happens in the kitchen, personality-wise, so if she thought she was winning points there, she's dead wrong.
Back in the kitchen, Heather offers one of the worst apologies I have ever heard: "Bev, I'm sorry if you think that I hurt your feelings, but that's the truth. I didn't call you out in the last challenge at the judges' table, and you know what? I feel like I had no say in our dish. I said I didn't want to do anything Asian. You didn't listen to any of my ideas." Beverly did NOTHING BUT LISTEN to her ideas. Heather had a bazillion chances to change things up. Heather is a terrible, terrible person. Beverly interviews that, unlike Heather, she doesn't feel better when she puts someone else down. Grayson points out that, by selling Bev out, Heather may have sold herself out. Then Heather snaps at Grayson, who is talking calmly, and Grayson says that she doesn't think Bev has a bad work ethic. Then everyone gives up and just lets Heather rant because why bother? Seriously? Bev says that they made every decision together and Heather says that she took responsibility for it. Oh, really? So like two minutes ago when she said that she felt like she had no say in their dish, that was taking responsibility? Heather keeps ranting and raving and everyone just sits there, feeling gross. Have you ever been in that situation? Where some asshole is yelling like an idiot and you know it's not even worth it to call the person out, but it makes you feel sick? Everyone in the room but Heather has that look on his or her face right now.
Back to the judges. Padma says the pressure of the competition is wearing on them, and Tom says that's irrelevant. So shut it, Heather. Tom agrees that the cheftestants sent in the right three teams. Hugh brings up Chris's dumb idea that didn't even work, and Tom says that you have to start with a dish and flavors and then work extra stuff in if you can, not start with the extra stuff idea and put it into a dish where it doesn't belong. Tim notes that Nyesha and Dakota's dish just had uncooked meat, and they're surprised that Nyesha didn't check in. Hugh thinks that's just part of good teamwork. The problem with Heather and Beverly's food was just bad teamwork, and the judges also don't love that Heather brought up challenges, since this isn't a cumulative competition. So they have a loser and it's time to reveal who's going home.
I just noticed that Dakota has an X tattooed on her hand. Does that mean she's Straight Edge? Is that still a thing that people are these days?
The three teams come back to face the judges. Tom tells Chris and Grayson that their dish was all over the place, with competing flavors. He tells Dakota and Nyesha that their venison was undercooked. And he tells Beverly and Heather that their duck wasn't crispy enough or rendered enough, and it seemed like two different dishes, because they didn't work together well enough. So who's going home? Dakota and Nyesha. God, poor Nyesha. She trusted her partner and got screwed, and she knows it. Dakota knows that it's her fault and feels horrible. Tom says that you can't screw up the game in a game challenge. Well, now they'll head to Last Chance Kitchen for another shot. Is anyone but me watching that? Do you feel like Keith is auditioning for the role of host, or is that just me?